Transcript Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Seneca the Younger
• Studied grammar and rhetoric
then turned to study
philosophy
• He was exiled to Corsica.
Emporor Claudius accused
him of committing adultery
with Julia Livilla (Claudius’s
niece).
• Stoic Philosopher
• Young people mimicked his
writing while others harshly
criticized him.
• His Style:
• Staccato Style
• Moral order (Stoicism)
• Drastic shifts (i.e.
humorous to serious)
Continue to act thus, my dear
grasp. Lay hold of to-day's task, am a poor man. My situation,
Lucilius—set yourself free for
and you will not need to depend however, is the same as that of
your own sake ; gather and save so much upon to-morrow's.
many who are reduced to slender
your time, which till lately has
While we are postponing, life means through no fault of their
been forced from you, or filched speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is own : every one forgives them,
away, or has merely slipped from ours, except time. We were
but no one comes to their rescue.
your hands. Make yourself
entrusted by nature with the
What is the state of things, then ?
believe the truth of my words,— ownership of this single thing, It is this : I do not regard a man as
that certain moments are torn
so fleeting and slippery that
poor, if the little which remains is
from us, that some are gently
anyone who will can oust us
enough for him. I advise you,
removed, and that others glide
from possession. What fools
however, to keep what is really
beyond our reach. The most
these mortals be! They allow
yours ; and you cannot begin too
disgraceful kind of loss, however, the cheapest and most useless early. For, as our ancestors
is that due to carelessness.
things, which can easily be
believed, it is too late to spare
Furthermore, if you will pay close replaced, to be charged in the when you reach the dregs of the
heed to the problem, you will find reckoning, after they have
cask. Of that which remains at the
that the largest portion of our life acquired them ; but they never bottom, the amount is slight, and
passes while we are doing ill, a regard themselves as in debt
the quality is vile. Farewell.
goodly share while we are doing when they have received some
nothing, and the whole while we of that precious commodity,—
are doing that which is not to the time ! And yet time is the one
purpose. What man can you
loan which even a grateful
show me who places any value recipient cannot repay. You may
on his time, who reckons the
desire to know how I, who
worth of each day, who
preach to you so freely, am
understands that he is dying
practising. I confess frankly :
daily ? For we are mistaken
my expense account balances,
when we look forward to death ; as you would expect from one
the major portion of death has who is free-handed but careful.
already passed. Whatever years I cannot boast that I waste
lie behind us are in death's
nothing, but I can at least tell
hands. Therefore, Lucilius, do you what I am wasting, and the
as you write me that you are
cause and manner of the loss; I
doing : hold every hour in your can give you the reasons why I
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Themes of Seneca’s Tragedies—vengeance, madness, power-lust,
passion, irrational hatred, self-contempt, murder, incest, hideous
death, vicissitudes (unwelcomed change) of fortune, savagery,
reason, determinism of history, genealogy and competitive
cyclicity of evil, fragility of social and religious forms,
epistemological forms, civilization as moral contradiction, man as
appetite, as beast, as existential victim, power, impotence,
delusion, and self-deception, the futility of compassion, the
freedom, desirability, and value-paradox of death, man, god,
nature, guilt, and unmerited suffering, the certainty of human pain,
and the terror of experienced evil.
Metaliterary and metatheatrical
Normally 5 act structure
Dumb shows
Protagonist transforms into evil character
Paradox of adversity